PANAMA PORTS Creating an Atmosphere that Celebrates Teamwork

The Background

Panama Ports Company (PPC) is a

member of Hutchison Port Holdings,

which, in turn, is a subsidiary of the

firm Hutchison Whampoa Limited, the

world’s leading maritime port opera-

tor with interests in 51 ports in 25

countries around the world. It is a

private company, but the Panamanian

government owns a 10 percent share

of the company.

PPC operates three facilities in Pana-

ma: the Port of Cristobal and Cristobal

Cruise Terminal on the Atlantic Ocean

side of the Panamanian isthmus, and

the Port of Balboa on the Pacific side.

The operations are huge. Each week,

some 6000 railcar containers are han-

dled by mammoth cranes that line the

ports--30 containers per hour per

crane. Workers off-load containers 24

hours a day. Thus, the company, with

thousands of employees, moves 2.4

million containers each year, making

the port second in volume in all of the

Americas (after Long Beach in Califor-

nia). PPC is number one in Panama,

and it is number one in Latin America.

The Challenges

Ten years after Panama Ports was

founded, the company started facing

serious challenges. There were ru-

mors that a competitor was going to

build a mega port close to Balboa

Port, and that new port might take

away some of PPC’s clients. PPC was

concerned about its ability to retain

clients. There was also the problem of

growth. The addition of many new

cranes meant more new hires. For

instance, Cristobal had the highest

growth rate of any port in Panama,

and in the space of just a few years,

CENTER for ADVANCED RESEARCH Discovering and Documenting Greatness

© FranklinCovey. Center for Advanced Research. All rights reserved CFR English November 2011

2

the employee head count had gone

from 500 to over 3000.

As General Manager Alejandro Kou-

ruklis saw it, “growth in the number of

employees presented the challenge of

maintaining a common culture. Each

manager was working in his own de-

partment, each trying to tackle his

challenges on his own. *There was+ a

lot of frustration because they were

feeling that there were all these exter-

nal forces threatening their ability to

keep up with the number of clients we

had, that the level of growth was hard

to manage. *They wondered+ whether

they had the right tools, the right peo-

ple, the support of our parent compa-

ny, and so forth.”

So, the company was in the throes of

managing rapid growth while needing

to keep a wary eye on the competitors

around them. Moreover, the compa-

ny wanted to achieve the amazing

goal of processing 32 containers per

hour per crane, and to do that, the

company needed to make sure that

everyone was “on the same page.” To

handle this situation, PPC turned to

FranklinCovey. Alejandro Kouruklis

believed that the work of a general

manager “has very little to do with

moving containers. It is, rather, what

is our culture? What is the goal?

What is the direction we are taking?”

And so FranklinCovey was engaged to

assist the leadership enrich the com-

pany culture.

The Solution

In 2007, PPC invited Pepe Miralles of

FranklinCovey Panama to train the

company’s leaders in the philosophy

of the 7 Habits of Highly Effective Peo-

ple and in the 4 Disciplines of Execu-

tion. “When we started to work with

FranklinCovey,” explained Alejandro

Kouruklis, “the first thing we did,

which we had not done for ten years,

was define our mission and vision for

the company. When we were in third

place among the ports in Panama, our

mission was to become the lead port

in Panama, and we moved to first

place. To get there, we had to imple-

ment many changes: first, we adopt-

ed win-win agreements because we

have had to negotiate with several

governments, and each new govern-

ment has its own ideas about how

things work; then with clients, to con-

vince them to come to use rather than

to one of our competitors; then with

our workers.”

After the initial training of the top

leadership, PPC arranged to have a

number of employees certified as in-

house FranklinCovey facilitators.

They, in turn, trained 250 people.

The trainers worked hard to make

their trainees feel comfortable with

the process. They decorated the train-

ing room with colorful balloons and

provided snacks. Purchasing Supervi-

sor Aixa Rose was one of those trained

to train others. “As facilitators we had

a fast-paced training, good training.

Once we got trained we started to

train our fellow workers. It was a

great experience, the way the sessions

were taught and the way people par-

ticipated.”

Tatiana De Gracia is the Supervisor of

Planning and Quality Control for the

Engineering Department. She also was

trained as a facilitator and agreed with

Aixa Rose’s evaluation of the training:

“The impact in my life was wonderful

because I have to model the Habits.

We had to make many changes in the

way we work, the way we think, our

attitudes, break paradigms, modify

the way we plan activities, and most

of all, in my personal life, maintain a

balance.”

© FranklinCovey. Center for Advanced Research. All rights reserved CFR English November 2011

3

Cesar Brathwaite, Manager of the De-

partment of Industrial Safety and Oc-

cupational Health, was also trained as

a facilitator: “After the program, I had

to completely change my way of

teaching because in order to teach the

program I had to live it, I had to know

it and feel it so I could explain it.”

One of those trained was Manuel Pi-

zon, Manager of the Department of

Operations for the Cristobal and Bal-

boa Ports. He explained the value of

using scoreboards and regularly re-

porting the results so that everyone in

the company is working toward the

same goals: “One of the most im-

portant processes we experienced

with this program was involving the

personnel in the results. Every week

we go over the results of Operations

and the whole terminal, both Balboa

and Cristobal, and we share the re-

sults with the organization. That is

important for them, because they are

not only measuring their results but

also seeing the progress and the

changes we are making with them so

that we move toward the goal set up

by the organization.”

Using scoreboards, the top leadership

as well as department heads go over

the productivity measures weekly with

their staffs. Such openness allows eve-

ryone to see how all the teams are

moving toward the goals. But produc-

tivity results are not the only items

discussed. Continuous improvement

plans are also discussed, with the

leadership doing a lot of listening in

order to get feedback from the em-

ployees.

The Results

How did the employees feel about the

training? “The majority of the people

were pleasantly surprised because, up

to that point, they really didn’t have a

way to express their ideas; there was

not a channel within the company that

they could use to have their ideas

heard, to feel that they were taken

into account. They now felt that were

important enough to the company to

be provided with this type of interna-

tional training. So, they felt heard,

that they were part of this company,

and that they now had greater power

to solve issues,” explained Kouruklis.

He added, “You can see how they get

excited about taking it home. They

say, ‘This is going to help me with my

wife, my husband, to help my chil-

dren,’ and that makes them feel good

because they are not thinking that we

are doing this so they can work faster,

but because we all want to be the best

people we can possibly be.”

© FranklinCovey. Center for Advanced Research. All rights reserved CFR English November 2011

“We all want

to be the best

people we can

possibly be.”

4

The new company culture has pro-

duced results far beyond the number

of containers moved in a day or week.

Tatiana: “The company has a variety

of social projects. Departments prac-

tically compete with each other to see

which one will give the most to chil-

dren *in the community+. We are the

godfathers of the Leukemia and Can-

cer Foundation; we have festivities for

anniversaries and mother’s day; we

had a lot of convivial celebrations

with singing and enjoying ourselves.

In these festivities we share family

pictures from the employees, and

they feel so proud and so united. So

all these opportunities for interaction

within the Panama Ports’ family, as

well as in the communities of the Co-

lon Province and the Panama Prov-

ince, have been very valuable. So

much so that, at a national level, Pan-

ama Ports has been recognized as one

of the best companies to work for,

and that is something we are so

proud of, and we have done it in a

short period of time.”

According to Lisa Ballesteros, Admin-

istrative Manager of Port Cristobal

and a ten-year veteran of PPC, the

FranklinCovey training made a big im-

pact on the culture of the company:

“”I definitely think that there is a big

change. Ten years ago, when I just

got to Panama Ports, the culture was

too…how could I explain it so as not

to get anyone in trouble? The organi-

zation has changed most in how much

more we listen to everybody, every-

one who works in the company. This

has helped us to better understand

our business, the objective, that eve-

rybody understands the key objective

of the company. Before, each depart-

ment, each person had a different

objective. Not now. Now is different

because we are all focused on the

same thing.”

Cesar Brathwaite: “One important

change has been the opportunities.

Upper Management has given many

opportunities to the employees to

grow professionally and personally.

In my case, they listened to me during

management meetings and *thus+

gave me the endorsement to grow

professionally and take this message

to others, namely, that in this compa-

ny there are opportunities, and if we

do our jobs with a sense of commit-

ment, loyalty, and responsibility, we

can all achieve things.”

© FranklinCovey. Center for Advanced Research. All rights reserved CFR English November 2011

“There has

been a big

change.”

5

Listening to the needs of the employ-

ees has produced a work environment

that other companies only envy.

There is a scholarship program for em-

ployees’ children who do well in

school; there is a physical therapist on

site to help with physical ailments;

there are nurses, ambulances, and

paramedics; hot, healthy meals are

provided; even coffee is provided all

night for workers on the night shift;

employees feel so united that they

voluntarily choose to wear matching T

-shirts with both the logos of Panama

Ports and FranklinCovey printed on

them; the company gives coffee mugs

to employees with their personal

name printed on them alongside the

phrase “7 Habits;” key chains and

lunch coolers with “7 Habits” on them

also are handed out.

In addition to the cultural atmosphere

improvements, the company achieved

its productivity goals, for when the

company was launched in 1997, it was

not number one in Panama nor Latin

America. But, the company has

achieved those goals and is on track to

achieve its next goal of 32 containers

per crane per hour.

Return on Investment

Was it worth it financially for PPC to

bring the FranklinCovey philosophy on

board? General Manager Alejandro

Kouruklis explains: “It was inexpen-

sive, truly. There is no doubt that the

investment was more than justified. It

was worth it, and we feel proud every

time a person who works at Panama

Ports receives this type of knowledge

from our internal facilitators—to see

how they get so excited, not only at

work but also at home. ◘

© FranklinCovey. Center for Advanced Research. All rights reserved CFR English November 2011

“The

investment

was more

than

justified.”

FranklinCovey wishes to thank the following for their contribution to this case study: General Manager

Alejandro Kouruklis; Human Resources Manager Jose Domingo Gonzalez G.; Training Supervisor Querube Mar-

tinez de Diaz; Planning and Control Supervisor Engineering Department Tatiana De Garcia; Facilitator Aixa Rose;

Facilitator Cesar Brathwaite; Manager Liza Ballesteros; and Manager Manuel Pinzon. Interviews were conducted

in March 2010.

For more information on Panama Ports, contact

LEADERSHIP TECHNOLOGIES, INC. FranklinCovey LATAN, Chile y Caribe Occidental pmoscatelli@franklincoveyla.com

Oficina (507) 206-6700 Cel (507) 6677-3005 Fax (507) 264-3728